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High trait anxiety blocks olfactory plasticity induced by aversive learning

Aversive learning normally induces alterations in sensory function as the brain’s sensory systems are tuned to optimize detection and discrimination of threat-predictive stimuli. Anxiety disorders can disrupt behavioral discrimination between threat-predictive and neutral stimuli, resulting in overg...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Biological psychology 2022-04, Vol.170, p.108324-108324, Article 108324
Main Authors: Rosenthal, Michelle C., Bacallao, Michael A., Garcia, Adam T., McGann, John P.
Format: Article
Language:English
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Summary:Aversive learning normally induces alterations in sensory function as the brain’s sensory systems are tuned to optimize detection and discrimination of threat-predictive stimuli. Anxiety disorders can disrupt behavioral discrimination between threat-predictive and neutral stimuli, resulting in overgeneralization of negative affective responses to non-threatening situations. We thus hypothesized that anxiety could disrupt learning-induced improvement in sensory discrimination. We tested perceptual discrimination between similar odorants before and after discriminative aversive conditioning. Participants exhibiting normal levels of trait anxiety developed a larger skin conductance response (SCR) to the shock-predictive odorant and substantial improvement in their perceptual discrimination between the two odors. Repeated exposure to the odors without shock partially extinguished the SCRs but the perceptual effect persisted. By contrast, participants with high levels of trait anxiety developed comparably sized SCRs to both odors and displayed no perceptual improvement. Learning-induced perceptual plasticity can thus be impaired in people with high levels of trait anxiety. •High trait anxiety blocks aversive learning-induced sensory plasticity.•The heightened generalization of anxiety manifests as sensory generalization.•High trait anxiety may disrupt ability to distinguish safe from danger-associated cues.•Extinction does not reduce the enhanced perceptual discrimination.•Exposure therapy interventions might benefit from addressing sensory generalization.
ISSN:0301-0511
1873-6246
1873-6246
DOI:10.1016/j.biopsycho.2022.108324